The present invention relates to vehicle body retractable tops, and more particularly, to vehicle body retractable roof top panels that translate between normal and storage positions.
Various convertible car tops of both the hard and collapsible fabric type are well known in the automobile industry. A major disadvantage of the fabric convertible top is that it can be easily torn. It also gives the car a noisier ride and is much more subject to sun and other weather related damage than a hard top. Convertible hard tops tend to have complicated and cumbersome constructions. Recently sun roofs have enjoyed considerable commercial success because they offer an inexpensive alternative to a true convertible. However, pop-up sun roofs do not give an open air feeling. Rearwardly retracting sun roofs can only open the forward half of a passenger sedan roof because the sun roof must be stowed in the remaining half. Therefore retracting sun roofs are generally not used in two-seat sports cars. Some sports cars have used hard tops which are completely removable. Other sports cars have so-called "T-tops" which comprise glass roof sections which are completely removable from either side of a central, longitudinally extending roof beam. Removable hard top roofs and roof panels are inconvenient and cumbersome. Often the removable roof or roof panels take up too much space to be stored in the trunk of a sports car and must therefore be stored in a garage. This makes it impractical to convert to the open roof configuration while "on the road."